Category Archive
‘Stolen vehicles’: 73 Posts

In 1972, a young Terry Dietrich of DeKalb County, Georgia, purchased a new Corvette coupe, a car she still refers to as her first love. It was blue, with a T-top roof, and just six months after bringing the car home from the dealer, it was stolen from the parking lot of her employer. Forty-two-plus years later, the car has been recovered by police, but there’s still a good chance it won’t find its way back to Terry’s driveway.

When police arrived to take her statement in 1972, investigating officers told Terry to prepare for the worst. Her Corvette, they advised, had probably been parted out already, its frame dumped unceremoniously in the Chattahoochee River. For over 40 years the car’s disappearance remained an unsolved mystery, though Terry’s insurer, Allstate, had long since paid the claim for the car’s theft.

As 11Alive, via Corvette Blogger, explains, all that changed in early 2015 when Forest City, North Carolina, car dealer and restorer Gary Green purchased a blue 1972 Corvette coupe from a local woman whose husband, the car’s owner, had recently died. Gary was so familiar with the car, which had been a local fixture since 1975, that he never thought to question its origins or the legality of its ownership. That changed when he purchased the car, and quickly realized its VIN was for a 1969 Corvette convertible, not a 1972 coupe with the T-top roof.

A closer inspection revealed a different VIN on the Corvette’s frame and engine, and Gary immediately notified the authorities. His Corvette turned out to be one stolen from Terry Dietrich in 1972, and police in North Carolina impounded the car. To secure its release, a title matching the original VIN is required, but here’s where the trail grows cold.

Terry never had the title to the car, as it was stolen long before it was paid off. Her insurer, Allstate, admits that it may once have had the title after paying the claim, but no longer has the document. Even the State of Georgia, which issued the original title back in 1972, is of little help as it can’t produce a copy of the document.

North Carolina, meanwhile, remains inflexible in its ruling that the car won’t be released without a title or a court order, regardless of the original police report proving ownership. Technically, since it long ago paid the claim, the car belongs to Allstate, but even the insurance giant has had little luck in arguing its case for ownership with the North Carolina DMV.

Unless a title is found or a court order to release the car issued, it will eventually be sold at auction, something that original owner Terry Dietrich fears most. She knows she can’t afford to be the high bidder, meaning that someone will once again drive away in “her” 1972 Corvette. Losing the car was painful enough in 1972, and losing it again in 2015 won’t be any less so.

On December 11 at approximately 8:00 a.m., Neal Jackson arrived at his Mattress Express store in Cornelius, North Carolina, to find his 2014 24-foot V-nose Diamond Cargo enclosed cargo trailer missing from the parking lot. Inside was a replica of a 1969 Roger Penske Trans-Am Camaro, built from an ASA tube-frame stock car wrapped in 1969 Camaro bodywork. Can you help Neal find his missing Camaro and trailer?

Per the police report, the trailer and car were both in the parking lot when Neal locked up the store at 8:00 p.m. on December 10, meaning that the theft occurred in the 12-hour span in between. The cargo trailer is white, with no external markings, and it was carrying a North Carolina license plate reading AC45178 at the time of the theft. The trailer’s VIN is 53NBE2420E1018425, and Neal tells us that there’s a bit of wrinkled metal on the trailer’s right rear, where the door folds, courtesy of a parking lot run-in.

Inside the trailer was Neal’s Penske replica Camaro, built from an ASA stock car chassis by Chuck Mallet. In addition to the car’s distinctive livery (hand painted, another potential help in identifying the car), much of the work carried out by Chuck Mallet (including the wiring harness and ECM) contains the initials CLM. Also unique is the car’s red dash and door panels, along with the pinstriping on the hood and rear. Since the car was built from a tube frame chassis stock car, it does not carry a VIN. To make matters worse, the car was not insured, and Neal estimates its value at $100,000.

Neal is offering a reward for information leading to the recovery of the car, and he can be reached at 704-778-9966. The Cornelius Police Department is also working on recovering the car and trailer, and they can be reached at 704-892-1363; if calling, reference case report OCA 141211080001.

We have learned that several of the bikes that participated in the Motorcycle Cannonball that finished at the LeMay museum on Sunday have been stolen. A complete race rig was taken from the Hotel Murano in Tacoma, Washington, including a gray 2001 Ford F-250, Texas plates “89LBC7” and a gray 16-foot enclosed trailer with both side and rear doors, Texas plate “4198M”, that housed four classic race bikes.

The truck can be identified by the Motorcycle Cannonball decals on the front doors. The trailer has an A/C unit on the roof and also had a Cannonball logo on the rear fold-down door. There is a substantial cash reward for the finder of this equipment. Although taken in Tacoma, the stolen vehicles could be in Canada or anywhere in the Northwest by now.

If you see any of these vehicles, contact the Tacoma police department at 253-798-4721. The case reference is 14-266-0150.

UPDATE (25.September): Thanks to an astute observer who’d seen Facerbook posts about the theft, the trailer with four antique Harley-Davidson motorcycles was recovered in Seattle on Wednesday. The Ford F250 pickup was later recovered in unincorporated King County, Washington.

* Several outlets, including Jalopnik, covered the story this week of a New York lawyer getting his stolen Jaguar E-Type back after authorities found it at the Port of Los Angeles along with a few other suspicious-y cars on their way to the Netherlands.

* Also this week, as reported on Ran When Parked, a Finnish guy reunited with his Ford Anglia after forty-something years. Except he’d left the Anglia right where it sits today, and it doesn’t look like the little Ford’s going to be moving from the spot anytime soon.

* As seen on Engine Swap Depot, a French moped enthusiast decided his Peugeot needed a V-8, though not just any V-8: He took eight single-cylinder engines and figured out how to tie them all together (from the photos, it looks like two inline fours with their crankshafts belted together).

* Finally, the Detroit Historical Society recently ran a few photos of onetime Ford employee and Stout Scarab designer William Bushnell Stout’s Skycar, his concept for a simple and affordable airplane.

* There’s two sides to the old car hobby: Those who drive their cars and those who don’t. On the one hand, you want to take them out and show them off. On the other hand, there’s always the danger of getting a ding or scratch. Unless, that, is, you’re Hank Graff, whose son recently gave him a 1954 Chevrolet Corvette displayed like a 1/18-scale model car – in a box with transparent sides.

* A less cheerful father-son old car story comes this week from AZCentral (via Jalopnik), which reported on Mario Caperon losing the 1963 Oldsmobile Cutlass convertible that he and his son were restoring. Previously stolen, a DMV error put the Cutlass back into circulation before Caperon bought it; however, a friend of the guy who it was stolen from spotted it, alerted authorities, and then ended up with it – and without having to pay Caperon for the work he and his son already put into the car.

* Knowing that Chevrolet had the Corvette ZR-1 in the works, Ford’s SVO group wanted to build a car that would be half the ZR-1′s price with the ability to outrun it. The car they dreamed up looked pretty much like any other Fox-body Mustang, but concealed a twin-turbo 5.8L V-8. Reportedly, it didn’t enter production because they couldn’t find a transmission to hold up behind that engine. (via)

* It sounds like a tractor and it spews black smoke out the exhaust. That’s because this 1988 Pontiac Fiero has been fitted with a 1.9L diesel from a 2000 Jetta TDI.

* Finally, the Renault Espace – a minivan denied to Americans but renowned in Europe – turns 30 this year.

* I believe we’ve found the Michael Paul Smith of the off-road world. A guy named Headquake on Facebook scratchbuilds intricately detailed and weathered off-road trucks on RC chassis, then goes out and flogs them on rocks and dirt, in the process taking photos that make them look like full-size rigs. (via)

* Somehow Bill Hemenez never saw Pulp Fiction. Even if he had, he probably wouldn’t have known that the 1964 Chevelle that he reportedly sank tens of thousands of dollars into was the same car from the movie and the same car that was stolen from director Quentin Tarantino’s driveway in 1994. Now that the Chevelle is back in Tarantino’s hands, Hemenez says that he feels screwed by the director.

* Good Spark Garage this week took a look at the amazing photography of Bill Greene, whose family spent much of the 1960s and 1970s riding motorcycles off road in Southern California.

* Over on (recently deposed Automobile magazine editor) Jean Jennings’s Jean Knows Cars, Ron Ahrens recently profiled Kaylin Stewart, who plans to both celebrate her sweet 16 and run 200 MPH at Bonneville this year. Add land-speed racing to the means by which we can get youth interested in old cars.

For the last quarter century, it seemed that only a King Solomon-level judgement would decide the rightful owner of a one-of-five racing Ferrari stolen and subjected to a long-standing ownership dispute between the Ferrari’s previous owner and current possessor. Now it appears that dispute has been resolved, freeing the Ferrari to head to auction this summer.

Ferrari built just five examples of its 375-Plus, a car designed for the sole purpose of capturing the 1954 World Sports Car Championship. Based on the successful 375 MM of the year before, the 375-Plus used an updated version of company’s 4.9-liter V-12 that produced nearly 350 horsepower. Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the 375-Plus was the car’s pronounced hump between the rear fenders of the Pinin Farina-designed alloy body, which housed a 180-liter (47.6 gallon) fuel tank, along with a spare wheel and tire. To handle the additional power of the revised V-12 engine, the original 375 chassis was strengthened and a De Dion rear axle was fitted. The modifications proved to be beneficial, as the 375-Plus (along with the Ferrari 750 Monza) helped deliver the 1954 manufacturer’s championship to Ferrari.

The first 375-Plus (chassis 0384 AM), however, was not the luckiest of racing Ferraris. Entrusted to drivers Umberto Maglioli, Jose Froilan Gonzalez and Paolo Marzotto, the car’s sole win came at Silverstone in the hands of Gonzalez. Its other four outings for the Scuderia in 1954 resulted in DNFs while a sister car proved victorious for the team at Le Mans. In 1955, the 375-Plus ended up in the hands of Jim Kimberly, a gentleman driver who was heir to the Kimberly-Clark Kleenex fortune (and later, president of the SCCA). Kimberly is only known to have raced the car in five events before turning the reins over to Howard Hively, an Ohio Cadillac dealer and fellow gentleman racer.

Hively campaigned the Ferrari extensively during the 1955 season, and posted wins in his first two outings behind the wheel. Though he would score one more podium finish with 0384 during the season, most outings produced top-10 finishes (with a few DNFs added to the mix). Hively last raced the 375-Plus in February 1957 at the Cuban Grand Prix, where a fire damaged the car and produced another DNF for the ill-fated 375-Plus.

Hively then sold 0384 to nuclear physicist Karl Kleve for $2,500, and Kleve reportedly stored the rare Ferrari (then viewed as just another used race car) outside on his two-acre property near Cincinnati from 1956 to 1986. On January 6, 1986, a trailer containing the chassis, body panels, radiator, and transmission was reported stolen from Kleve’s property.

After a number of twists and turns – the dealer who received the stolen car was prosecuted, but never convicted; Belgian authorities held up the car to investigate its status, but ultimately released it for import into the country – and passing through several hands, the car surfaced in Italy, where it had been restored with a period correct 4.9-liter V-12 engine and assigned the identity 0394 AM (which, according to Barchetta.cc, had previously been assigned to a reserved engine and not an entire car). Now owned by Belgian Ferrari imported Jacques Swaters, owner of the Ecurie Francorchamps team, the car became the center of a legal dispute between the Kleve and Swaters families that would stretch 23 years and last well beyond Kleve’s death in 2003, with each party believing it had the legal rights to the car. Auction house Bonhams, however, recently reported that it assisted in settling the long-running dispute, making the car available for its first-ever public sale in June.

The Ferrari will be offered at no reserve, and included with chassis 0384 will be a spare period engine block and original body panels showing evidence of the car’s livery at the 1957 Cuban Grand Prix. Bonhams has not released a pre-auction estimate for the car.

Bonhams Goodwood Festival of Speed sale will take place on Friday, June 27, at the Goodwood Estate in Chichester, West Sussex, England. For additional details, visit Bonhams.com.

UPDATE (12.November): The 1954 Ferrari 375-Plus, chassis 0384 AM, was reported sold for a price of $18.3 million but has since been withdrawn by Bonhams and is the subject of an ongoing legal dispute over ownership.

Any Northeasterner into AMCs must have seen Bob Majeski’s 1958 Rambler Ambassador over the last 14 years: In the time that he’s owned it, Bob has put 34,000 miles on it driving it to pretty much every major AMC show in the region. Now Bob is counting on that familiarity to bring his car back to him after thieves took it in broad daylight over the weekend.

“I used to joke, ‘Why would anybody ever steal it?’” Bob said. “It’s pretty much the only one around, and nobody needs any parts from it. And yeah, it’s a beautiful car, but it’s a 1958 Rambler, so who’d want it?”

Nevertheless, after he came back from a drive with some friends, mapping out the weekend’s dust-off run for the Connecticut region of the American Motors Owners Association and AMC Rambler Club, he found his Ambassador missing from where he left it earlier that afternoon in the parking lot of the All Seasons Inn and Suites in Smithfield, Rhode Island.

“I’m floored,” he said. “I can’t believe anybody would want to steal this car with AMXs and Javelins around it. All I can figure is that somebody thought they were stealing a ’57 Chevy, and somebody opening a container in South America will be surprised when they see my car.”

Ordered as a dealer demonstration car, the Ambassador Custom Country Club four-door hardtop (chassis number V38666, one of about 1,300 built) came loaded with just about every option available except for power steering windows. That means it has the four-barrel 270-hp, 327-cu.in. V-8, Flash-O-Matic automatic transmission, Twin-Grip limited-slip differential, Weather-Eye, reclining seats, power steering, power brakes, and wide whitewall tires. Thirty years after selling it to make room for the 1959 models, the original dealer bought it back and then held on to it until his death. Bob, a co-founder of the Nash Car Club of America and a certified AMC nut who’s owned 13 Nashes and five or six AMCs, then bought the Ambassador from the dealer’s widow several years later.

At the time, it showed 51,000 miles, and all Bob’s really had to do to it in the years since is replace a few pieces of chrome trim, recondition almost the entire drivetrain, and put more miles on it. “It’s been a great road car,” he said. “In 2002, I took it to Kenosha, and the farthest I drove it was to the AMO national meet in Georgia (in 2005).”

Anybody with information on the whereabouts of Bob’s Ambassador should call Bob himself at 203-758-5758 or the Smithfield Police Department at 401-231-2500.

* Ever wanted to have your own car dealership? Geoff Hacker of Forgotten Fiberglass recently found a fairly inexpensive way to do so. Of course, the cars don’t run and you have to assemble the whole thing yourself. And watch out for papercuts. And you have to like Nashes.

* What does it take to put a Bugatti Type 57G Tank back on the track again? Well, you could petition Dr. Simeone, who owns the only Bugatti-built Tank left, or you could build your own Tank from some Type 57 bits and pieces and a scratchbuilt engine, as one Bugatti restorer recently did. Mate Petrany at Jalopnik has the story on the world’s newest Tank.

* Pittsburgh gangster John Volpe was a sharp-dressed man, and he had a sharp car to match. Over at The Old Motor this week, David Greenlees recounted Volpe’s last day and included the above photo of his V-16 Cadillac.

* How can one man own every model Mercedes ever built? Easy: He owns every (scale) model Mercedes ever built. What’s more, Mihail Neagu has taken to photographing them all, Michael Paul Smith style, and creating tiny people to populate his 1/18-scale worlds. (via)

* If you’ve been following the Dakar this year, you’ll note the usual amount of misadventure. What you likely won’t see, however, is the lead competitor’s vehicle stolen, but that’s exactly what happened in 1988, as Andy Hallbery wrote this week on Motorsport Retro.